Weapon bonuses
*Updated: Mar, 2026 finishing hit patch, bonus damage calculator
*Updated: Feb, 2026 to reflect patch to puncture
*Updated: Jan, 2026 - bonus ranges adjusted
*Edited: Corrected several mistakes and clarified language where possible.
** Note: I was originally going to incorporate comments into the body of the text, but only did so to correct factual mistakes. There is a lot of good advice in the comments (special shoutout to Kumo for an epic knowledge drop!) and I highly recommend reading those. If you are interested in a particular bonus, use the find function in your browser to get all the information that people have contributed. It'll be worth your time, I promise!
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**Link to my bonus damage calculator: https://busta-chrymes-damage-bonus-calculator.base44.app/Wiki *
This guide:
I made this guide to consolidate information about RW weapon bonuses. My purpose is to make a reference that is good for all levels of players, and allows for differing situations. I will give examples of when a weapon is usable, what weapons the bonus is good on (or not) and possible synergies. Part of what makes Torn fun is that you can craft your own combinations and adapt different strategies based on your goals, your stats, or your situation. This guide is made to assist you in your decision-making process.
Disclaimer:
This is meant as a general reference. I would recommend either Mug’s list or TheMightyThor’s list if you want expert advice on which weapons are best and why.
Bonuses:
Some quick basics about weapon bonuses:
- Not every bonus is available on every weapon. The ‘eviscerate’ bonus only appears on shotguns, piercing and slashing weapons.
- Some weapons have two bonuses, but a vast majority will have only one.
- Bonuses have varying potencies. For example, if a bonus increases damage it might give a 20% increase, or a 59% increase. There is a limit to the range, determined by the rarity (denoted by color; yellow/orange/red) of the weapon.
Differing situations:
The assassinate bonus, which gives a large increase on damage but must be used on the first turn of battle can be great or horrible, depending on your build and how you use it. For example, if you generally ‘punch up,’ assassinate won’t be as effective even with a trigger mod since you might be outstatted and there are plenty of dex mains out there. So unless you are a speed main (is that even a thing?), you will need to lower the enemy’s speed using temps, etc.
But are you into mugging people who are lower level than you, and you want the fight to end quickly before the stealth bar runs out? Maybe an assassinate QSZ with a suppressor is the key. Are you joining team fights where the enemy has high levels of distraction? Or are you getting teamed up on a lot? – Assassinate procs on the first hit against each person attacking you making it a beast on defense against groups. And how does this weapon fit in with the rest of your loadout? Do you already have a red eviscerate? These are all things to consider when choosing your weapons.
Analysis:
All analyses are written with yellow rarity in mind. There are two reasons for this. The first reason is that a vast majority of RW weapons are yellow rarity. Higher rarities are not only just that, they are also sold less on the market because people tend to keep them, pulling them largely out of circulation. The second reason is that this guide is meant to be as beginner-friendly as possible. If you can afford a red revitalize weapon, you can probably figure out what to do with it on your own.
Acknowledgements:
I have a great amount of respect for all of the guides before this one, and I have liberally taken ideas from those guides and added them here. I feel that a lot of the information could generally be considered “public information” similar to common wisdom and except for a couple instances, will not write down references or names to avoid clutter. (And besides, I’m not submitting this to a scientific journal or anything). But I do want to give credit where credit is due, so here are the people who are much cleverer and better at maths than I ever will be. This guide is due to the experience and wisdom of the Torn player base, specifically (and in no particular order):
Proxima, Andyman, Razoriel, Kumo, _Scofield_, Toxic, Ryukendo, TheMightyThor, Mug, Nihilisticcat, Indycision, Oran, Exca314, Sugarhigh, Flare, Anis, 1SolidKeeper, dakoolnoob, 7631012, Weav3r, Heisenberg, Kalends, and xilh. I’m sorry if there’s anyone I missed mentioning, if you feel there is information that you had originally submitted that landed in here, please be sure to mention that in the comments and I will add your name to the contributions.
Further reading:
dakoolnoob's RW Cache and Advanced Weapon Ranges | Tutori… (torn.com)
mug's Legendary Guide | Vanguard update | Tutorials & Gui… (torn.com)
Thor's ULTIMATE DAMAGE TIERLIST [Version 2.0] | Tutorials… (torn.com)
Wiki Issues - Page 141 | Bugs & Issues | TORN (Values for bonus ranges)
How the information is organized:
Name of bonus |
Effect (taken directly from the wiki) |
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Weapons the bonus can spawn on (taken from wiki) |
Yellow Proc/efficiency rates by rarity (taken from wiki) |
Orange |
Red |
Facts: Facts about the bonus – Many of these facts are from either the wiki, or from questions people have asked on the forums. |
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Analysis: My personal analysis of the weapon, although I tried to be as neutral as possible. The sign at the beginning points to whether it’s a positive (+), neutral (/) or negative (-) point. |
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Synergies: Possible combinations, mods, weapons or bonuses to consider when buying this weapon, also separated by positive (+), neutral (/) or negative (-) points. |
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Achilles |
Increased foot damage (%) |
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Rifles, shotguns, submachine guns, pistols, clubbing, piercing, slashing |
Yellow 50-74% |
Orange 75-100% |
Red 113-169% |
Facts: The chance of hitting the opponent’s foot is roughly 8.8%. Damage is 0.7x base damage (whereas the leg is 1.0x, chest is 2.0x) |
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Analysis: + It’s usually the cheapest of all RW weapons. + All RW weapons are high quality, so it’s like a slightly stronger version of vanilla weapons you already love. - This is a hugely unpopular bonus; at yellow, attacks on the foot will barely hit harder than normal attacks on the legs and arms. - If this is the only RW weapon you can afford, you should spend your money elsewhere. If you can afford a better weapon, you should buy that one instead. |
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Synergies: / You need this on a strong weapon. - Doesn’t particularly combine well with other weapons. - Loses effectiveness when critical hit chance goes up. |
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Assassinate |
Increased damage on first turn (%) |
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Rifles, Pistols, Piercing |
Yellow 50-70% |
Orange 70-100% |
Red 100-148% |
Facts: This bonus only applies to the very first turn of the battle, not the first time you use the weapon. If you are defending against a group, it will proc for the first attack against each person. |
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Analysis: + The damage increase is very high compared to other bonuses. / On defense, you need to make sure the weapon attacks first. The best way is to set the attack percentage at 100 and turn reloads off, while putting other weapons at either 1-2%. - After the first attack, the weapon is equivalent to a high-quality vanilla weapon. - Not good against people with higher dex than your speed; if you want to attack stronger players, you will need to pre-roll needles or join a group attack. |
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Synergies: + Combines well with weapon trigger mods which increase accuracy on the first turn by 5.00 or 7.50. / The bonus requires a weapon with high accuracy and damage, but not necessarily a lot of ammo. This makes the Cobra Derringer a perfect candidate on defense, and if you are expecting to switch to a different weapon. - Doesn’t combine well with eviscerate |
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Backstab |
Chance (X%) of double damage when opponent is ‘distracted’ |
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Piercing |
Yellow 30-43% |
Orange 37-64% |
Red 44-96% |
Facts: “Distracted” refers to the mechanic in play during a team attack when the enemy has been attacked by another player. As the bonus is only proc’ed during distraction, the bonus is completely ineffective on defense. |
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Analysis: + The proc rate is extremely high relative to the damage output; The ‘double-tap’ bonus which gives a chance at hitting twice in a single turn (kind of close to double damage) only has a proc rate of 15-23% at yellow. - A very niche bonus as it only applies during group attacks. - This might be a useful faction armory weapon, passed around to members when making group attacks, but the limited use puts it relatively low on the list of weapons to own. |
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Synergies: + A useful weapon to have in a faction armory if team attacks are often used. + Combines well with buffs or enemy debuffs -2x damage is a lot, but it won’t turn a bad weapon good. If this is on a pen knife or butterfly knife, with a damage rating of mid-thirties, you’re better off just using a DBK or Macana and doing attacks with a 65 damage rating 100% of the time. |
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Berserk |
Increased damage (X%), but with a reduced (half X%) hit chance |
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Slashing |
Yellow 20-35% |
Orange 36-58% |
Red 60-88% |
Facts: The reduced hit chance is half the increased damage. So if the bonus increases damage by 20%, it reduces hit chance by 10%. |
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Analysis: + A good option for increasing damage; lower hit chance can easily be overcome with cheap temps. / Since you are buffing one stat at the cost of another, this is not a terribly sought out bonus. But what is often overlooked is that there aren’t a lot of damage increasing bonuses for slashing weapons. There is no “assassinate” or “specialist” bonus for slashing weapons. Some of the other damage increasing bonuses available are wind-up (increased damage, but at the cost of one-turn), Fury (chance of hitting twice in a single turn; low proc rate), etc. So if you want to increase your slashing weapon damage, this is a perfectly valid option. - Missing more is detrimental to damage (obviously). -Every miss is one less chance at getting a critical hit, and it causes less consistent results. |
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Synergies: + Combines well with buffs or enemy debuffs. / This needs to be on a good weapon. Low accuracy will make it even harder to hit, and low damage won’t benefit as much from the boost. |
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Bleed |
Chance (X%) at causing “bleed” DOT effect, with damage ticks starting at 45% that of the damage dealt when proc occurs, and reducing to zero over 9 turns, for a total of 225%. |
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Shotgun, piercing, slashing |
Yellow 20-30% |
Orange 31-46% |
Red 48-72% |
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Analysis: + Although the effect lasts for 9 turns, the damage is heavily front-loaded, meaning hitting constantly with this weapon is a valid strategy (as opposed to hitting once and letting the bleed run its course). / should be used sooner in the battle rather than later. / If used as a damage dealer, it is important to pay attention to the proccing hit. If bleed procs on a critical hit, you are better off leaving the bleed effect for a longer time, and vice versa. |
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Synergies: + Since the bleed effect deals damage based on the attack that proc’ed it, having a high rate of critical hits can make this bonus even better. (Mods, merits, etc.) + Eviscerate or other damage buffs will also work well, since the harder the initial hit, the higher the bleed damage. (Note that eviscerate does not affect the bleed damage itself; it only increases the damage of the initial hit which in turn will raise the amount of damage being bled). + Bleed is more effective the longer a battle is, both in terms of chance of proccing, and for the effect to last. I'd only recommend a yellow bleed if your fights last longer than 10 rounds and you hit at least 50% of the time. / For best results, a strong weapon with good dmg/acc is necessary. Proc rate for a yellow is between one every 4-5 hits. Ammo should be considered accordingly. |
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Blindside |
Increased damage (X%) if target has full life |
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shotguns |
Yellow 25-39% |
Orange 40-62% |
Red 63-97% |
Facts: Lower damage bonus than assassinate, but can be used after throwing a temp. Higher damage bonus than specialist, but limited to activating it only once. |
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Analysis: + It can be used with temps, or other (non-damage dealing) debuffs. + If you miss, you can try for the bonus again, unlike assassinate. - This bonus has limited usefulness during a RW since many targets are not usually at full health. |
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Synergies: + temps, damage dealing buffs / Must be on a strong weapon - Doesn’t combine well with assassinate and ineffective with eviscerate. |
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Bloodlust |
Life regenerated by (X%) of damage dealt |
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slashing |
Yellow 10-12% |
Orange 12-15% |
Red 15-19% |
Facts: Note that the amount recovered is based on the amount of life lost by the enemy. For example, if you defeat an enemy by hitting them for 1,000 damage, but they only had 200 life left, the life regenerated is based on the 200 life. The current max life is 12,870 (full marauder armor, merits, faction perks, mining corp.) Alternatives to regaining health mid-fight are: the gas station special (10% chance on 20% health regeneration) and serotonin (25%). |
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Analysis: + This is a rather unique effect in that it is one of the few (if sub-optimal) ways to recover life mid-battle. It can help sustain you in a long fight and frustrate the opponent if you are continually recovering. + You can also use it to heal instead of raising your medical cooldown using meds. You just need to hit a high hit-point target that doesn’t damage you. - This is usually very expensive, and not particularly useful for lower-level players where boosts to damage output in order to finish the fight sooner is often more useful than trying to sustain or stalemate. - Also, 10% is not a whole lot, particularly at lower levels. If you hit a 4,000 health opponent,you’re only getting 400 life back. |
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Synergies: + Since life received is a % of damage dealt, buffs to damage are effective. /Best if on a strong weapon |
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Comeback |
Increased (X%) damage when brought below ¼ life. |
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Submachine guns |
Yellow 50-70% |
Orange 70-99% |
Red 102-138% |
Facts: This bonus only applies when you get hit and fall under 25% hp; it will not proc if you simply start the battle below 25%. |
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Analysis: + Stronger when you have a high defense or dexterity and can last several rounds at ¼ life. + One of the highest damage boosting bonuses. It is as high as Assassinate, which only lasts for a single round, and it’s much stronger than powerful, specialist and deadeye. - Can be countered by a person with an execute weapon and high speed. - Only available on submachine guns, most of which are sub-par weapons. |
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Synergies: + Can be paired with Dune armor, which reduces damage received when under ¼ life. / Best when used on a strong weapon. |
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Conserve |
Increase (%) of ammo conservation |
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Machine guns, rifles, submachine guns |
Yellow 25-30% |
Orange 30-37% |
Red 38-49% |
Facts: Rounding of numbers with decimals apparently uses ‘stochastic rounding’ which means lower decimals have a higher chance of rounding down, and higher decimal numbers have a higher chance of rounding up, although the opposite may occur. Weapons with Conserve include the bonus on the rate of fire. For example, an Ensfield usually has a rate of fire between 2-5. But on a weapon with conserve, the ROF is displayed as 1-4. (or 1-3 if you have a high percentage conserve). This does not, however, include further reductions to ammo spent via math education or the recoil pad. Other ammo conservation bonuses are additive. So if you have a recoil pad (25% conservation) and a 25% Conserve RW weapon, you’ll be conserving 50%. |
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+ Can be useful on defense. Particularly if you are getting teamed up on and you end up using a lot of bullets. |
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Synergies: + Can be used with a recoil pad and math edu to greatly reduce the number of bullets fired. (although it might be more prudent to use the weapon slot for a different attachment since you are getting diminishing returns) / Might be useful if your other weapon has the specialist bonus. The specialist bonus means it will only have one clip, which makes being able to fire a lot with your other weapon a good idea (unless you have a killer melee). - You probably won’t pair this with a weapon that needs constant hits, like stat debuff weapons, or deadeye, expose, etc. |
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Cripple |
(X%) chance on hit of debuffing the enemy passive dexterity by -25% |
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Heavy artillery, shotgun |
Yellow 20-29% |
Orange 29-41% |
Red 43-63% |
Facts: As with other debuffs, it takes a damaging hit to proc. The effect lasts for 5 minutes, and can stack up to three times for a total of -75%. EDIT: Once three stacks are applied, the bonus will not trigger again, nor is it possible to refresh the times of the debuffs. Debuffs on the enemy are based on the timer, and persist until the timer runs out or the enemy is sent to the hospital. (In which case the debuff goes away.) Will only active once per ‘turn’ so if combined with effects that give you multiple attacks per turn, it only has a chance to proc once. |
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Facts: + It can be useful in a group attack where other people in the fight are having a hard time hitting the enemy. + You can use this bonus on a high accuracy (primary) shotgun, such as a Benelli M1 Tactical and switch to stronger, lower accuracy weapons after a couple stacks. / While there are other alternatives to debuffing the enemy’s dexterity (temps, group attacks, etc.), constantly shooting a shotgun at someone’s face isn’t the worst thing you can do. -I don’t see why this is on heavy artillery weapons. Most have low accuracy and ammo capacity; both which make using it for the bonus practically useless. -There are several shotguns with high accuracy, but low cartridge capacity. Proccing three stacks of the debuff will probably require at least a couple reloads unless you have good ammo conservation and once again, if you are hitting that often, perhaps reducing the enemy’s dexterity isn’t such a big priority. |
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Synergies: + Can be useful on a shotgun main and a Type 98 anti-tank secondary (with a different bonus). This allows for the shotgun to be used in earlier rounds to debuff the enemy which can help the low accuracy anti-tank weapon hit later in the fight. |
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Crusher |
Increased head damage (X%) |
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Clubbing |
Yellow 50-74% |
Orange 75-108% |
Red 114-171% |
Facts: There is roughly a 9% chance to hit the head; which leads to about 80% of all critical hits. Hitting the head does 3.5x base damage, or 3.5x as much damage as an attack to an arm or leg. |
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Analysis: + The damage increase is high compared to other damage bonuses (although in line with other body-part specific bonuses, such as achilles, or throttle). + Doubling damage on high damage areas is more effective than on low damage areas. For example, if your attack on a foot does 100 damage, it doubles to 200. An attack on the head that does 350 doubles to 700. + Since the damage increase is so high, and 4/5 critical hits will land on the head, this turns out to be comparable to deadeye. - Only available on clubbing weapons which don’t benefit from weapon mods or special ammo. |
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Syngergies: + Could pair with enemy debuffs well. / This requires a strong weapon; and there aren’t that many strong clubbing weapons. Metal nunchakus, or perhaps a flail if you have great speed could work. |
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Cupid |
Increased heart damage (X%) |
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Rifles, shotguns, submachine guns, pistols, clubbing, piercing, slashing |
Yellow 50-74% |
Orange 75-111% |
Red 113-168% |
Facts: There is roughly a 1.2% chance to hit the heart; making up only 1 in 10 critical hits. Hitting the heart does 3.5x base damage, or 3.5x as much damage as an attack to an arm or leg. |
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Analysis: + The damage increase is high compared to other damage bonuses (although in line with other body-part specific bonuses, such as achilles, or throttle). + Doubling damage on high damage areas is more effective than on low damage areas. For example, if your attack on a foot does 100 damage, it doubles to 200. An attack on the heart that does 350 doubles to 700. + Spawns on most weapons, including guns which can be modded. - The same damage bonus as crusher, with a much lower proc rate. - At such a low proc rate, deadeye handily outdamages cupid. |
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Synergies: / Can be paired with weapon mods to increase critical hit chance, but you can’t increase the chance to hit the heart as opposed to the head. |
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Deadeye |
Increased critical hit damage (X%) |
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Rifles, pistol, piercing |
Yellow 25-45% |
Orange 45-74% |
Red 75-123% |
Facts: There are many debates about the best damage increasing bonuses, or whether deadeye (crit damage increase) is better than expose (crit rate increase) which are outside the scope of this guide. What can be said is that deadeye is often listed high in damage builds, especially at orange or red ranges. |
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Analysis: + A good damage buff that scales up dramatically at higher rarities. / Not to dip in too far into the debate of deadeye vs. expose, but I think from the perspective of doing more damage at a lower rate, or doing less damage at a higher rate, expose lends itself to more consistency, less junk hits, and less overkill. Whereas deadeye scales better, can end battles faster, and is better for punching up. |
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Synergies: + Goes well with anything that increases critical hits, such as mods, merits, etc. + By extension, goes well with enemy debuffs to increase overall hit rate and damage. |
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Deadly |
(X%) Chance of a “deadly” hit (+500% damage) |
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Shotguns |
Yellow 2-3% |
Orange 4-6% |
Red 7-10% |
Facts: A good way to get the “Annihilation” honor (deal 15,000 damage in one hit). |
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Analysis: + It can be a fun weapon to have on defense, when you are often attacked by people stronger than you. It can serve as a nasty surprise and if you are likely to lose anyways, hoping for a 2-3% proc while not a winning strategy, is better than nothing. - The problem of a low proc rate is compounded by the fact that the bonus is useful only in select situations. Probably not when enemies are coming out of the hospital, not when you have to defeat a low-level opponent, and not as the last hit of a battle which could lead to wasted damage in overkill. |
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Synergies: + Using piercing bullets would help because if the deadly hit is on a heavily armored part of the body, the armor would mitigate a large chunk of the additional damage. / This needs to be on a good weapon, because it needs to hit, and multiplying low damage is not effective. |
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Disarm |
Disables opponents weapon for (X) turns upon hitting their hand or arm. |
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Rifles, pistols, clubbing, piercing, slashing |
Yellow 3-5 turns |
Orange 5-9 turns |
Red 9-15 turns |
Facts: The chance of hitting a hand or arm is about 17.6%. If you disarm a person for three turns and the fight ends, the effect does not carry over to the next fight. (There is a current bug where disarm carries over to the next fight regularly, even though it’s not supposed to). Does not proc on 0 damage hits Does not proc on additional attacks granted by fury/rage/double shot. In group fights, |
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+ Many people point out that this weapon is especially good for Duke missions (along with parry) because most targets have run out of ammo, so their only weapon is a melee. |
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Synergies: + Can work well with enemy debuffs, especially on defense / This really needs to be on a good weapon to be useful. Since it has a low chance of proc’ing, you will probably need to make several attacks with the weapon. If the bonus is on a weapon with a 25-damage rating, and you use that weapon for 4 turns trying to hit an arm, you’ve wasted a lot of damage potential. / If you really want to disarm the enemy, it is possible to unequip critical hit rate mods to increase the amount of times you hit the enemy’s arms. Whether the tradeoff is worth it or not depends on your strategy. |
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Double-Edged |
(X%) chance of double damage at the cost of self-injury. |
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slashing |
Yellow 10-16% |
Orange 16-23% |
Red 25-40% |
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I recently did an attack against an opponent that procc'ed this bonus and the damage had exceeded the opponent's max hit points. The self-inflicted damage was proprotionate to the full damage of the attack, overkill damage and all. |
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Analysis: + There are limited options for increasing damage on slashing weapons. + This weapon is most effective when fighting someone stronger than you. In which case, taking ¼ the damage of your attack, while not ideal, can be tolerable. If you consider that attacking the enemy twice opens you up to two enemy attacks, doing double damage on one attack and taking one enemy attack plus ¼ your attack (which is probably weaker than your enemies hits) can be a fair tradeoff. / Before everyone flames me, I’m not saying that this is a particularly good bonus. I realize it is dead last on a lot of people’s lists for various (and valid) reasons. So that might be another thing to keep in mind if you are considering getting a weapon with this bonus. - Fury has the same proc rate, and it has a similar effect, without the self-damage. - Exchanging life for an increase in damage seems foolish since you can increase damage without hurting yourself, via ‘berserk’ (the ‘cost’ is a reduction in hit chance). - Practically speaking, you wouldn’t use this bonus on an enemy weaker than yourself; you could end up losing a large amount of health in a fight where you normally wouldn’t have taken any damage. |
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Synergies: / Since the purpose is to create more damage, a strong weapon is necessary to make use of this bonus. |
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Double Tap |
(X%) Chance at hitting twice in a single turn. |
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pistols |
Yellow 15-24% |
Orange 24-36% |
Red 38-57% |
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Can proc a second attack even on misses. |
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Analysis: / A decent damage bonus, but since it is exclusive to pistols, I think it’s worth addressing that there aren’t a lot of times where you will look to make your pistol your main damage dealer. |
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- A weapon like a Cobra Derringer is terrible with this bonus. The Derringer has a rate of fire of 1-2, but only holds 2 bullets per clip. So your first attack has a 50% chance of firing 1 bullet, and 50% chance of firing 2. If the gun fires 2 bullets, you are out of bullets, and the bonus won't proc. And assuming you only shot 1 bullet in the first round of attacking, the second round you are guaranteed to run out of bullets. |
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